Volume 22  World Interest Rates

This volume surveys long-term government interest rates in
the G-7 countries.

All charts in this volume start in 1950, and use monthly
data.

Nominal Yields and Spreads vs. US Yields

Each of the first six charts (example below) compare the G-7
(ex-US) rates to the US ten year constant maturity government
rate. The top panel shows the nominal yield in the top panel on a
log scale. The middle panel shows the nominal US ten year
constant maturity government yield on a log scale. The bottom
panel shows the spread (foreign yield minus US yield) on an
arithmetic scale.

The middle
line is the nominal US ten year constant maturity
government yield on a logarithmic scale.

The bottom
line is the spread (Italian yield minus US yield) on an
arithmetic scale. The horizontal axis is drawn at the
zero level. When the line is above the axis, Italian
bonds offer a yield premium to US bonds.

This is a
5kb thumbnail!
It would take over sixty
full SVGA screens to show the detail on one
Topline chart.

The
real charts look much better than these thumbnails.

Real Yields

Each of these three charts compare the real yields of two
countries to the real yield of the US. These are three-panel,
portrait charts with arithmetic scales on all three panels. The
US real yield is shown in the bottom panel of all three charts
for comparison.. Germany,
Italy and U.S. Canada,
France and U.S. Japan,
United Kingdom and U.S.

Real Yields: Each country's
inflation rate (annual rate of change of its CPI) is subtracted
from its nominal yield to calculate its real yield.

Using the Comparable Log Scale format, these three charts
allow for a more direct comparison of the nominal interest rates.
There are periods when all of the rates tend to move in unison,
and periods when they each go their own way. These charts make it
easy to identify those periods.